I miss my words. Lately I don't have the time or emotional energy to write and haven't for two years. Since the whole thesis and work life thing actually started. Last week, I came across stuff that I wrote several years back and suddenly realized how much I missed that part of my life.
The problem is not that I can't find the time. You can always make time for something you love. I think the problem is more that moving, adjusting to a new job, and just living is pretty much taking up all of my attention. I write when I'm bored.... when I'm bubbling over with something that has to spill out somewhere. Lately, I think I've been living my life on the outside of my skin so much I've lost the road that I used to take to the core of what I am.
While I can't start writing again in a day. What I can do is start small. I can write a little each day. small things. random things. and who knows? some day I might start writing something I like again.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The meaning of life
"What are you supposed to do in life? You're born, you eat, you sleep... what else are you supposed to do?" I was watching honey and clover and this struck me as a question for which there is no real answer. Is the meaning of human life merely to propogate our species?
It's so easy to get caught up in this you go to work, you eat, you sleep, you go to school, you go to more school so you can do more work. What's the meaning behind it all? Maybe there isn't one. And if so, then wouldn't it be just fine if we can all just do what we'd like to do? But Life isn't so simple. Maybe what you'd like to do wouldn't lead you to be able to eat and sleep well and so you have to find something you'd like to do a little less.
I'm trying to weigh the costs and benefits. Would doing business school really get me where I want to go? Do I even know where I want to go? Maybe that's the real question. I've a feeling that that one will take me my entire life to answer.
It's so easy to get caught up in this you go to work, you eat, you sleep, you go to school, you go to more school so you can do more work. What's the meaning behind it all? Maybe there isn't one. And if so, then wouldn't it be just fine if we can all just do what we'd like to do? But Life isn't so simple. Maybe what you'd like to do wouldn't lead you to be able to eat and sleep well and so you have to find something you'd like to do a little less.
I'm trying to weigh the costs and benefits. Would doing business school really get me where I want to go? Do I even know where I want to go? Maybe that's the real question. I've a feeling that that one will take me my entire life to answer.
Monday, September 11, 2006
How not to manage
It's Monday morning after what can be described as a bad week at work. So bad that the weekend wasn't quite enough to recover from it, although I did get lots of chores done. In explanation I should probably say that I usually love my work, and I've had the fantastic opportunity of having had lots of good experiences with lots of people who are fantastic people to work for and to work with. Currently though, I'm on this one case which I can only say would not be so such a bad case if not for the people on it.
I'm sure the people on it are perfectly nice people, and in real life I'd probably like them, but I'm learning a lot on how NOT to manage from them. For instance, while in an investment bank it might be okay to make people work 90 hour weeks forever, in my company you don't expect your teams to work 50-60 hour weeks for 2 months straight when the expectation is 40 hour weeks. You also do not yell at your analysts, or the other managers for doing work on other cases because analysts generally know how to allocate their time between what is urgent.
I guess I'm also learning a lot on what it means to be middle management and what to do and not do. The one thing I have learnt, is that it is demoralizing to workers if middle management is negative. As middle management, never criticize the managers openly, and never express negativity about the feasibility of meeting deadlines or your own workload because it is demoralizing to the workers who consequently feel they have to take on everything.
I need to be off this case. I can't believe I have at least two more months of this to look forward to. JB says that if you hate work for more than a month you should quit, but there are and will be other cases so that doesn't always make sense.
I'm sure the people on it are perfectly nice people, and in real life I'd probably like them, but I'm learning a lot on how NOT to manage from them. For instance, while in an investment bank it might be okay to make people work 90 hour weeks forever, in my company you don't expect your teams to work 50-60 hour weeks for 2 months straight when the expectation is 40 hour weeks. You also do not yell at your analysts, or the other managers for doing work on other cases because analysts generally know how to allocate their time between what is urgent.
I guess I'm also learning a lot on what it means to be middle management and what to do and not do. The one thing I have learnt, is that it is demoralizing to workers if middle management is negative. As middle management, never criticize the managers openly, and never express negativity about the feasibility of meeting deadlines or your own workload because it is demoralizing to the workers who consequently feel they have to take on everything.
I need to be off this case. I can't believe I have at least two more months of this to look forward to. JB says that if you hate work for more than a month you should quit, but there are and will be other cases so that doesn't always make sense.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Does the soul-crunching life-absorbing kind of love exist? The kind that all songs are based on... the kind of that makes you drop everything for it and kill yourself when it is over? Because if it does, I don't believe I am capable of it.
I won't pine away and die because you're not here. Won't cry myself to sleep or otherwise. When my friends here ask if I'm okay, I think it's strange that they would ask. Of course I'm okay, more than okay. I have a fulfilling job, friends, a life beyond you and so do you. We are ourselves complete and neither define nor run into each other like a palette of watercolours.
... but the world seems just a little more leeched of colour, a little more empty and a little more lonely when you're not around.
I won't pine away and die because you're not here. Won't cry myself to sleep or otherwise. When my friends here ask if I'm okay, I think it's strange that they would ask. Of course I'm okay, more than okay. I have a fulfilling job, friends, a life beyond you and so do you. We are ourselves complete and neither define nor run into each other like a palette of watercolours.
... but the world seems just a little more leeched of colour, a little more empty and a little more lonely when you're not around.